


A Shelter, A Weapon

by allthislight



Series: To Repaint And Repaint Every Day [2]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Canon Era, Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Smut, taking care of each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-27 17:34:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30126393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthislight/pseuds/allthislight
Summary: They had a rule about Air Supply in the bedroom. It was a big no-no, banned on every day of the year except for Brad’s birthday, which had been a month ago, and so there would be no getting it on to the sound ofMaking Love Out Of Nothing At All.Nate had other plans.Or: Brad and Nate through the years (2003-2007)
Relationships: Brad Colbert/Nate Fick
Series: To Repaint And Repaint Every Day [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2217084
Kudos: 21





	A Shelter, A Weapon

**Author's Note:**

> This may or may not have started out as songfic (bonus points to anyone figuring out which song it was), but it certainly isn't anymore. It was also meant to be a 2k-max fluffy nonsense snippet to get over my writer's block. In an entirely foreseeable move I then spent over a month agonizing over it. I'm still not happy with how it turned out, but I had to post it just so I could stop thinking about it.
> 
> Reading _All that we are, all that we need_ before getting into this is recommended but not strictly necessary. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

**I. August 21 st 2007 | Washington, DC**

The traffic light bathed Brad in its stark red glow, highlighting the clean-cut angles of his face. It made him look almost ethereal in a way that intensified the excitement thrumming through Nate’s veins even further, while Brad himself was a perfect picture of serenity, his fingers leisurely tapping out the rhythm of the song playing on the radio.

Nate was awash in the anticipation of what they would do once they came home, his own heart beating in an impatient _come on, come on, come on_ rhythm as he waited for the light’s hue to change on Brad’s face.

He needed to touch Brad, now, and he was drunk enough to give in to the feeling and lay his hand on top of Brad’s on the gear shift, pushing his fingers between Brad’s.

It made Brad shift his focus from the traffic light to Nate, the beginning of a smile playing around his lips, but not yet pronounced enough to reveal the underlying emotion. He lifted his hand with Nate’s still on top of it to press a light kiss against the back of Nate’s hand, holding eye contact all the way. Nate, already hot and sweaty, felt himself flush and Brad’s smile turned delightfully wicked, eyebrows raised mockingly.

“Stop it,” Nate admonished him just as the traffic light jumped to green.

It was late enough that there was no one in the lane behind them, so Brad took his time to lower their hands and shift the car into gear.

“Really?” he teased, his eyes glinting mischievously, “I thought your orders were to, and I quote, ‘get us home as fucking fast as possible’?”

“Just shut up and drive,” Nate grumped back, turning his head to stare stubbornly at the road ahead.

“You’re so sweet when you’re impatient,” Brad laughed, undeterred, but finally returned his attention to the road and started driving.

Nate only huffed in response, watching the streetlights fly by his window, already plotting how he’d enact his revenge once they’d be home without having to forgo the sex he’d been looking forward to for almost a month now.

**II. April 9 th, 2003 | Outside Ba’quba, Iraq**

In Iraq, every day was its own particular hell, but today had been especially taxing: an irrigation pipe mistaken for a tank barrel, hours of close-contact combat, a little girl, traumatized by all she’d seen and heard. A mobile biological weapons lab that turned out to be a field kitchen.

Oh, and he’d refused his CO’s direct order within earshot of his – their men.

As of two hours ago, the war was officially over. It didn’t bring Nate much relief. They may or may not have hit a turning point in the global war against terror, who was he to know. More pressing was the fact that his relationship with his CO was probably fucked up beyond repair, and that he felt more and more like he was nearing his own breaking point at a terrifying speed.

Being desensitized to the violence surrounding him was necessary to do his job cool-headedly, to avoid mistakes like the one he’d made this morning, when he’d let his fear turn an irrigation pipe into a deadly threat. Now that the war had been declared over, he could no longer keep himself from wondering how much of that he would carry home, if the person he no longer recognized was just who he was now. 

A burst of radio traffic from battalion HQ pulled him out of his thoughts, reminding him that there was still fighting ahead, no matter what the BBC had to say about it.

Godfather informed him that they were to put up another roadblock on the highway out of Ba’quba. Nate got off the hook and gathered Mike and the team leaders around his Humvee to pass down his orders. None of them were happy to be setting up another roadblock when all previous ones had resulted in avoidable civilian casualties.

The expression on Brad’s face was particularly stormy. The creases between his eyebrows hadn’t disappeared since the two men had brought their little girl to them, hoping they’d be able to help her when they were the very reason she wasn’t okay in the first place. He looked tired and defeated in a way that surpassed the doubts and the guilt most of them were struggling with.

Nate had to do something about that.

“A moment, Brad,” he said as the meeting dispersed, waiting to be acknowledged with a nod before leading him around the Humvee. Nate hopped into the back of the truck, already occupied by Christeson and their POW.

He gave Christeson a reassuring smile as he rummaged around for the stop sign he’d had him pilfer a couple of meters down the road earlier that day.

“I have something for you,” he called to Brad before jumping out of the truck with the sign in his hands, offering it up to Brad who accepted it gingerly.

“I thought having a sign in Arabic might help,” Nate explained as he took off his helmet to wipe at the sweat pooling uncomfortably on his forehead. “Maybe you could have Meesh write another one.”

He ducked his head slightly in an effort to catch Brad’s gaze, but he didn’t look up from the sign in his hands.

“I also think we should stick to your idea with the smoke grenades. It has potential,” he continued, hoping to get a reaction out of Brad. 

Brad just kept staring at the red octagon. It was so unlike his reaction to the gun lube that Nate’s worry skyrocketed. Maybe Brad was even further gone, even more exhausted than Nate had anticipated.

He clapped his hand onto Brad’s shoulder and shook it gently, then used that hand to direct him a few paces away from the truck, leaning in closer so they couldn’t be overheard easily by anyone walking by.

“What’s on your mind, Brad?” he asked gently, knowing he was taking a risk.

Strictly speaking, this was not his question to ask. He should go to Mike and let him deal with it. Nate was Brad’s CO, not his confidant. What if Brad told him something Lt. Fick wasn’t supposed to hear? He wouldn’t have much choice but tell Brad to snap to, as he’d done before, even if it was the last thing he wanted.

Quite frankly, he wasn’t sure he’d have the heart to do it. Trying to offer Brad some silver lining to hold on to, while struggling with the death of his own illusions as to any good he could do here, was taking up the last of the emotional energy he still possessed.

Brad was mustering Nate quietly, eyes wary, then his stance shifted into something more unguarded, his tiredness finally shining through in full force.

“Today… this morning, with the tank. I should never have made that mistake.”

Of course that haunted him. The Iceman didn’t make mistakes, everybody knew that. Only today he had - he’d been the first to misidentify the pipe as a tank, setting the entire platoon aflutter with his radio call.

Nevertheless, he wasn’t the only one at fault, and Nate had to make sure he knew that.

“We all made that mistake. Hell, I was right there with you, ready to blow that pipe into pieces.”

Having to call off the airstrike had been one of the most embarrassing moments of his career.

“We’re all working under extreme circumstances, without enough sleep, food or – fuck, enough of anything. Things like this happen. All we can do is try and learn from it. We won’t make this same mistake again. The most important thing is that nobody got hurt.”

“Yeah,” Brad said bitterly, “this time.”

Out of sheer dumb luck to boot, Nate thought, equally bitter, but knew it wasn’t what Brad needed to hear.

“We’re doing our best,” he offered instead.

It sounded hollow even to his own ears.

He was fucking this up pretty badly, wasn’t he? He wished he could do what Brad had done for him when he’d knelt in the dirt next to him and said _sir, your leadership is the only thing I have absolute confidence in._ He wished he could put it into words, how grateful he was for everything Brad had done, everything he was continuing to do.

He shot an apologetic smile at Brad, trying to encompass both his regret for the general situation as well as his own shitty attempt at a pep talk.

Right that moment, Mike called for him and Nate shouted over his shoulder that he’d be right with him.

When he turned back around, Brad’s Iceman mask was back in place.

“Thank you, Sir,” Brad said, narrowly missing the professional tone he’d probably been striving for.

Nate nodded in response. He reached out to give Brad’s shoulder a final squeeze, put his helmet back on and forced himself to turn away and go do his job.

It couldn’t be much longer now.

**III. January 2005 | Boston, MA**

Nate always drove with the radio on. After their fucked up road trip through Iraq, being in a car without the voices of his men and the crackling from the radio surrounding him felt like driving with a missing limb. He didn’t really care what was on – Top 50 music, game shows, celebrity news – though he might be prone to crow along to _In Da Club, Crazy in Love_ and other bangers.

Even years later, he found himself missing the bits and pieces of bastardized song lyrics and enthusiastic rapping that had drifted through his windowless truck - Brad and Ray’s impromptu duets secretly among his personal favourites.

It was only during his one-on-one cross-country trip with Brad that he gained a deeper understanding of Brad’s truly terrible musical preferences, and he soon realized that having Brad in your life came along with an extensive collection of Air Supply CDs.

At times, he felt a little like a hero in a Greek tragedy who’d had his most ardent wish granted by the Gods, only to be saddled with some nefarious side-effects he hadn’t had the foresight to take into account as some sort of perverse punishment.

Not that Nate wasn’t ready to pay pretty much any price for getting to keep Brad. Enduring Brad’s music and his infuriating, incorrigible habit of backseat driving didn’t even come close to being a dealbreaker.

To say that Brad’s first deployment with his unit of Royal Marines was hard on Nate was a terrible understatement. Not only was he constantly worrying about Brad’s safety and desperately trying to hold on to all the progress he’d made with his PTSD while doing so, it also robbed him of their regular phone calls. An email here and there was the best he could hope for outside of a staticky, government-sponsored phone call once in a blue moon. The long stretches of radio silence were a particular brand of torture SERE hadn’t prepared him for.

That was his only excuse for nicking Brad’s 1985 _Air Supply_ CD and listening to it on repeat whenever he was driving until he could – and would – sing along to every song by heart without even thinking about it.

He forgot to cover his tracks before Brad came home, too giddy about seeing him for the first time in seven months, and when he turned the key in the ignition to drive them home from the airport, _Just as I am_ blared damningly out of the speakers.

Brad’s face transformed into an expression of utter glee and Nate had no choice but to lean over and kiss that stupid smile right off his face.

**IV. June 3 rd 2003 | Frankfurt Airport**

Nate got up as soon as he realized Brad was heading towards him, ready to follow him wherever he was needed. Brad stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He barely used any pressure, but Nate followed his gentle push without resistance, sinking back into the uncomfortable metal seat.

Only now that it was right in front of his nose and close enough to smell, did Nate notice the disposable McCafé cup in Brad’s hand.

Brad held it out to him a moment later, but Nate didn’t reach out to take it. Instead, he let his gaze wander over the terminal, over his men, sitting on the floor, lying on the benches, leaning against pillars, many of them holding their own coffee cups.

“Gunny took your boys and made a coffee run,” Brad explained.

Nate frowned. He hadn’t noticed them leaving or coming back or distributing the coffee. Maybe he had dozed off for a while without realizing.

“Where’s yours?” he asked Brad, craning his neck to look up at him, still not taking the proffered coffee, smelling like actual heaven on earth.

No offence to Rudy and his volatile expresso maker, but real coffee, all complete with fresh milk and soft foam, seemed like the hight of frivolous luxury, even if it came from fucking McDonalds.

“Already drank it,” Brad claimed, shaking the cup in the universal _will you take this from me already_ gesture.

Nate reached out instinctively, as if to catch any precious drops that might’ve spilled over and before he knew what happened, he was holding the cup and Brad was sitting next to him.

Nate tipped it up gingerly to take the first sip. It was mostly foam, but he still had to close his eyes when the aroma hit his tongue.

Real coffee beans. With real milk. If this was a dream, he never wanted to wake up.

He thankfully managed to keep himself from making any embarrassing noises, but he still thought he could feel Brad’s gaze on him.

When he opened his eyes, Brad was staring straight ahead.

“Looks like we’ve made it,” Brad offered after a long moment of silence.

Nate looked out at the men, doing a reflexive headcount. Christeson and Stafford were rapping under their breath, sitting on the floor not far away from where Doc was standing, talking to Mike. A couple of seats away from them, Ray was making fun of Walt for drinking hot chocolate instead of coffee. Espera’s team was huddled around their Sergeant, who seemed to be in the middle of one of his epic rants. 

Everyone was accounted for, by the looks of it all healthy and happy.

Nate couldn’t help but remember the way Walt had looked after that roadblock in Al Hayy. Ray going uncharacteristically solemn and quiet at Paige. Doc’s conviction that there was no good in what they’d done. Poke struggling with his own, personal guilt.

He couldn’t help but think that this would cost them in ways they couldn’t even begin to fathom.

“Not quite,” was all he said out loud.

It was a way of expressing his doubts without actually doing so. On the surface, his statement could be understood as simply pertaining to the fact that, technically, their deployment wasn’t over. Granted, there wasn’t much that could go wrong between waiting to board their flight here in Frankfurt and landing in the States, but they weren’t home. Not yet.

Part of him – the part that was tired and overtaxed and struggling with everything he had to take home with him - hoped that Brad would pick up on it. Being this tired for so long was making it harder to supress his deep lying want to pry himself open for Brad to see, for only him to know. A want that was in direct conflict with the imperative to keep his front intact so he could be the leader his men needed him to be until the very last second.

In that moment, trying to keep himself together felt more like being torn apart. It was like Nate Fick, the man, had realized that it was almost over, and was trying to break through the shell of Lt. Fick, the Marine. A shell that was starting to feel more like thin canvas anyway, ready to reveal his inner workings to anyone who’d bother to shine a light on him.

A slight tilt of his head was Brad’s only response, but Nate imagined he could feel Brad’s arm pressing a little harder against his, thought about resting his head on Brad’s shoulder, if only for a moment.

He took another sip of coffee to chase the image away with the bitter taste on his tongue. This – Brad’s quiet support - had to be enough. It was more than he could ask for, anyway.

Silence settled over them as they both continued staring ahead, Nate taking an occasional sip of coffee until the cup was empty and he felt a little less tired, a little less frayed at the edges.

He wanted to just stay here next to Brad until one or both of them would be called away, but it felt too reminiscent of the way you would go out of your way just to get the seat next to your high school crush, and so he got up to throw away his cup and go to the bathroom.

When he returned, Brad was back among his men, like he should be, and Nate let himself be pulled into Doc and Mike’s conversation about what they were going to do once they got home.

**V. July 13 th 2006 | Boston, MA**

Shoulder to shoulder, they stared out at the empty apartment.

Some of the furniture was still in place, passed along to the new tenant, but all their personal belongings, everything important to them - the bed, the couch, Nate’s paddle - was in the truck downstairs or already in their new home in DC. Nate wished he could take his green kitchen cabinets with him as well, but his landlord probably wouldn’t look kindly on the last-minute vandalism.

“This is so weird,” Nate whispered, afraid of how his voice might echo through the space, of the way the place he’d spent the last three years of his life studying and struggling and sleeping in already felt foreign.

“Yeah,” Brad said, equally quiet. “Can’t believe this place has actually grown on me.”

Nate turned his head to look at Brad. He could only see his profile, but he could read the emotions flickering over his face perfectly – fondness, wistfulness, a twinge of regret.

Pretty much how Nate felt, then.

This place was special, always would be, because they’d turned it into their first home before they’d even known that was what they were doing. Because of all the memories they’d created here once they did. Nate was struck with a sudden bout of homesickness for the way it used to look, used to feel. He knew it was a pointless emotion to have in this situation - home was just going to be somewhere else now – but he didn’t quite have the heart to squash it down.

No matter how cold and impossible to heat it got in the harsh Bostonian winters, how many times he’d had to fix the kitchen tap, or how much he’d hated that he could hear everything that went on in his neighbours’ bedroom (and vice versa), letting go of it was hard, harder than he’d thought it would be. And it was not just the apartment. He was also leaving behind his school, his friends, his job at the bike shop, the place they loved to go for brunch.

Brad laced his fingers through Nate’s, squeezing gently for a moment and Nate squeezed back in thanks.

Letting go was hard, but necessary and _good_ , Nate reminded himself. It was time to move on, to put down roots somewhere else, to continue growing. He was excited about DC, about his albeit temporary position at the Department of Veteran Affairs.

He was taking the most important thing right along with him, anyway. Granted, it was only his name on the lease and Brad had his own place back in Georgia, but this was the both of them moving their permanent base of operations somewhere else - and it was bringing them that much closer together.

It had been important to Nate to make sure that Brad would be here for this, and not just to make him carry all the heavy stuff. He’d even paid rent for both places this month because Brad’s schedule hadn’t allowed him to come up sooner. Brad might’ve called it limp-wristed sentimentality over the phone, but Nate could tell from the tone of his voice alone that he appreciated the gesture.

“Want to go for a last goodbye quicky?” Brad asked into the silence, doing a half-turn so he was facing Nate without letting go of his hand.

Nate was more than tempted to give in, especially when Brad’s other hand started creeping its way towards his waistband, but the landlord was supposed to show up any minute now. Which might still not have been enough reason to make him pass up on actual sex with Brad, if their official final farewell fuck on the couch last night hadn’t been sort of perfect. Replacing that memory with an uncoordinated fumble against the wall went too much against Nate’s perfectionist nature.

“Nah,” he concluded, catching Brad’s straying hand and settling it on his hip, but tilted his face up, wanting to be kissed. Brad followed his wordless command immediately, bending down the couple of inches separating them to kiss him hot and sweet at the same time, nibbling at Nate’s lower lip while letting his hand slide up all the way over Nate’s chest to cup his jaw, pressing gently to get the angle he wanted as he deepened the kiss.

“Need you in tip-top form when we consecrate our new home tonight,” Nate muttered against his lips what might be a few minutes later, eyes still closed.

Brad pulled back, and Nate could imagine the affronted _how dare you question my sexual prowess_ look fixed on his face, knew he had a rant of epic proportions all queued up without having to open his eyes. Before Brad could get started, though, Nate was quite literally saved by the bell.

He opened his eyes, laughing, and leaned in to press a final peck onto Brad’s cheek.

“Looking forward to it,” he whispered against Brad’s skin, then turned away to get them home as soon as possible.

**VI. August 21 st 2007 | Washington DC**

Nate took charge as soon as they got through the door.

He made Brad sit down on the bench underneath the coat rack in the hallway, then got onto his knees in front of him. Instead of going for Brad’s fly, though, he bent down to undo Brad’s shoelaces, ducking his head so Brad couldn’t see the shit eating grin on his face.

They’d been to a more upscale restaurant, so for once in his life Brad was wearing black polished dress shoes instead of his dreadful old-man sandals. In fact, he cut a rather striking figure in his dress pants and white shirt and Nate was almost sorry he was about to divest him of his entire outfit piece by piece.

Almost.

Once he’d undone the laces, which would’ve gone over much quicker if he hadn’t had that last glass of wine, he grabbed Brad’s ankle to pull the shoe off his foot, one after the other. Brad let out a small huff but stayed silent otherwise.

Nate schooled his face into a more neutral expression before he looked up at Brad, even if he was pretty sure his cheeks were still flaming red from both the alcohol and the heat.

“Glad we got those out of the way,” he commented, all practiced nonchalance, letting his hand on Brad’s right ankle trail up his shin, as far as he could get until the pantleg cut uncomfortably into his forearm, sliding back down and repeating the motion a couple of times until Brad raised an eyebrow at him.

“You want to get on with it anytime soon?”

His tone was mocking, but Nate could hear the underlying impatience, mirroring his own. If he was to execute his game plan, however, he’d have to wait a little while longer.

“Patience, my handsome Jedi,“ he teased, eliciting a loud groan from Brad.

“I so regret making you watch those movies,” he mumbled.

He would. He’d shown them to Nate to make him see how inferior they were to Star Trek, but only managed to provide Nate with more fodder for their faux arguments that Nate mostly saw as an efficient way to combine working on his poker face with fun foreplay. The practice was certainly coming in handy now.

Nate got onto his feet with a final pat to Brad’s calf. When Brad tried to get up as well, Nate stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back onto the bench. He bent down to kiss Brad in the same motion, their lips and his hand slowly trailing up Brad’s throat the only points of contact.

The angle wasn’t perfect and he could feel Brad straining up to deepen the kiss, but Nate kept it at the barely there, teasing contact before he straightened up and walked away into the direction of the bedroom, crossing through the open plan kitchen and living room.

He’d gotten started on undoing his cufflinks before Brad made it into the room, almost soundlessly in his socked feet but not quietly enough to not be noticed by a former Recon Marine.

He plastered himself against Nate’s back, his arms going around Nate’s middle and Nate leaned into it for a moment, turning his head so he could whisper directly into Brad’s ear.

“I want you on the bed.”

He could feel the hitch in Brad’s breath, his arms going a little tighter around Nate, but he complied almost immediately with a kiss to the back of Nate’s jaw, sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands in his lap.

“Oh, and take off your socks,” Nate added after a beat, because even the Iceman’s socks would be sweaty in this heat, and Nate wasn’t touching that. Getting out of his own socks was bad enough, and Nate did so with a grimace once he’d toed off his shoes.

When he turned around, Brad had again done as he was told, sitting in the exact same position as before.

Nate was still a little embarrassed at the frisson of excitement that cursed trough him at Brad’s easy compliance. He always managed to justify it to himself by speculating that, maybe, it wasn’t as much about the Officer-NCO relationship they had started out in, and more about having a creature like Brad, all confident and imposing, moulding itself to his will, without the impersonal authority of his rank backing him up. This was about them, now, about them trusting each other, wanting to please each other in a give and take that, even after all these years, still felt fulfilling in a way very few things in Nate’s life ever had.

Nate still got hit by these realizations from time to time, how lucky he was to have Brad. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted though, so he collected himself and stepped around the bed, turning on the bedside lamp before hitting the light switch next to it, bathing the room into its softer glow.

Brad whistled.

“You want me to put on some romantic music as well? I’m pretty sure the Air Supply CD is still in the player.”

“Don’t you dare.”

They had a rule about Air Supply in the bedroom. It was a big no-no, banned on every day of the year except for Brad’s birthday, which had been almost a month ago - hence the CD still queued up. This was no special anniversary at all, though, just a date like many others before and certainly after, and so there would be no getting it on to the sound of _Making Love Out Of Nothing At All._

Nate had other plans. 

He retraced his steps until he was standing directly in front of Brad. Nate noted with satisfaction that this time Brad made no attempt to get up, waiting patiently for what Nate would do next instead.

Nate pushed a little closer and Brad parted his legs obediently to let him in. Nate rewarded him by working the buttons of his shirt open a little faster than he’d intended to. He still took the time to follow his fingers with his lips, brushing featherlight kisses over every inch of skin as he uncovered it, down Brad’s sternum until he had to get down on his knees to reach his belly, making it jump underneath the tickling contact.

Nate avoided looking up at him, but he was sure Brad could feel his lips curving into a smile against his skin. He tugged Brad’s shirt out of his pants to undo the last few buttons, his mouth stopping just shy of Brad’s waistband. Brad still didn’t make a sound, but his hand flew up to cup the back of Nate’s head, his fingers treading gently into Nate’s hair.

Nate made a little _ts_ sound and got back up, sliding his hands over Brad’s chest, his shoulders and arm to strip off his shirt, stepping back to hang it neatly onto the back of a chair.

When he turned back to Brad, he was a sight to behold - red-cheeked, eyes open wide and fingers digging into his thighs. There was a small frown wrinkling his forehead, as if he were trying to concentrate on something, but he looked undone already, his earlier calm in the car a thing of the past.

Smug satisfaction flooded Nate’s system. He’d show Brad how _sweet_ he could be, and he’d take him apart completely while doing so.

Nate was self-aware enough to know that his pettiness could go a long way in supplying him with the necessary motivation to see things through, and he was tapping right into it to make this into a night neither of them would soon forget.

He moved back in to divest Brad of his pants without actually touching his cock, already leaking by the looks of the wet spot forming on Brad’s underpants.

“Come on, Nate,” Brad whined, sounding just as undone as he looked. It short-circuited Nate’s brain long enough that he found himself on the bed, grinding down into Brad’s lap and invading his mouth with all the passion he’d held on such a tight leash until then, before he really knew what he was doing. He helped Brad wrestle him out of his own shirt, showing it none of the care he’d bestowed upon Brad’s clothing earlier.

It was only when they had to part to pull Nate’s undershirt off over his head that he managed to catch his breath long enough to come back to himself and he pushed Brad’s upper body down into the mattress when he tried to lean back in.

“Come on, move up,” he ordered and used Brad’s motion as he shuffled up the bed to divest him of his last piece of clothing.

The sight of Brad finally, completely naked, breathing heavily, his weeping cock curving up towards his belly, made him speed up in taking the rest of his own clothes off as well, letting them fall onto the floor right where he stood. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold on to his control, not with how turned on he was, with how much he just wanted to be as close to Brad as possible, after almost a month of being apart. Brad had come in too late from Georgia to be able to do more than take a quick shower and change before they had to drive to the restaurant – or risk losing their reservation that Nate had spent a significant amount of time on the phone securing.

Nate felt a little lightheaded, and he didn’t think he only had the wine to blame for it, his blood rushing through his veins into his rapidly hardening cock. He bit down on his lip, hard, to reign himself in and because he knew what that did to Brad, who didn’t disappoint, turning his head to groan into the pillow, his cock twitching visibly even from where Nate was standing at the foot of the bed.

Unfortunately, that showcase of Brad’s arousal managed to rile Nate back up immediately and so he had to stay standing there for a few moments longer, until he could crawl over Brad without losing his mind right away, turn every touch into a caress, kiss him languidly like they had all the time in the world.

Brad was doing his best to reciprocate, and this time Nate let him trail his hands over Nate’s naked back, gently massaging the spots he knew Nate often carried tension in. Nate pressed his knee between Brad’s legs and Brad used them to cradle Nate against himself until it felt like there was no part of them that wasn’t touching.

They kissed and kissed and kissed some more - they hadn’t made out like this in a while, their weekends together usually too short and their time apart too long to indulge like this without focusing on getting off in the immediate future.

Nate loved it more than he’d anticipated, and even when he decided to move on to getting Brad ready, he didn’t do it as fast and efficiently as possible, taking his time instead in coaxing him open, rubbing his own cock slowly on the mattress so that when he finally sank into Brad, it didn’t illicit sharp sparks of arousal but a slow, molten pleasure that Nate could tell would build only slowly into a rolling orgasm, the kind he most often got from a lazy morning hand job from Brad before he was even entirely awake.

Brad moaned loudly, eyes open wide, one of his hands on Nate’s ass trying to pull him in even further. He looked completely caught in the web of sweet intimacy Nate was trying to weave between them, as he repeatedly peppered Brad’s face with kisses, worshipped him with his hands and whispered over the top love declarations and praise into Brad's ear while fucking him oh so slowly.

The special treatment seemed to really do it for Brad - he might have honest to god _sobbed_ somewhere in there, between his mumblings of _feels so good, feels wonderful, Nate, Nate, please -_ even before a barely-there touch to his cock sent him into an orgasm that made him go completely silent for a moment, eyes screwed shut and back arching off the mattress, arms thrown out in both directions, almost spanning the entire width of their bed.

Nate was too caught up in his own pleasure to feel any triumph at his undisputed win. The feeling of Brad clenching around him, the way he looked as he came, was almost enough to make Nate follow him over the edge, but before he could quite get there, Brad stilled him with a hand against his chest, communicating wordlessly that Nate’s thrusts were a little too much as he was coming down from his orgasm.

Nate kissed Brad’s cheekbone and pulled out slowly, trying to spare him as much of the overstimulation as he could.

He made sure he kept touching Brad all the way through, unwilling to let go of their physical connection while he still felt so close to Brad mentally, with how open they were to each other in that moment. He kissed his way over to Brad’s ear and nuzzled his face against Brad’s temple, the imperative of _closer, closer, closer_ still thrumming through his veins as he shifted them around until his cock was pressed up between their sweaty bellies, lube residue and Brad’s cum enough to make it glide against Brad’s skin smoothly. 

Brad still seemed a little out of it, but he wrapped his arms back around Nate in what seemed like pure instinct, rubbing a foot against Nate’s calf in a halting rhythm.

Nate could feel his orgasm build back up, even more intense now after he’d been so close to the edge before, and he kept whispering into Brad’s ear how perfect even this felt, how glad he was that they could be home like this, together, until he couldn’t take it any longer.

With his forearms bracketing Brad’s head, Nate propped himself up so he could look right into Brad’s eyes as he came after one, two, three more thrusts, forcing himself to keep his eyes open as the pleasure rolled through him, so that Brad could not only hear and feel but also see how much he loved this, how much he loved _him._

Brad cupped the back of his head to pull him down into a kiss and this time Nate complied readily, even as he continued heaving for breath, making it a little messy, their noses bumping against each other, until the last energy reserves seemed to zap out of Brad, making him go entirely boneless beneath Nate.

Nate gave himself another minute to breathe, then pushed himself up and away from the heat and the stickiness that hadn’t bothered him in the slightest a moment earlier, deciding in favour of a quick shower to cool down.

His departure elicited a quiet noise of protest from Brad, but he didn’t move otherwise.

Once Nate was out of the shower and it became clear that Brad wouldn’t be getting up any time soon, Nate took out a cool cloth to clean him up, looping back into the bathroom to throw it into the sink once he was done. He slipped into a fresh pair of shorts from the dresser before opening a window to let some of the fresh night air in, crossing the room once more to click out the lamp on Brad’s side of the bed.

He crawled onto the bed so he was sitting on his knees next to Brad, who warily opened one of his eyes to look back at him.

Nate was usually the first one to get up after sex, but he could count the occasions where Brad had been unable to even do as much as roll into his favoured sleeping position on one hand. He thought the satisfaction he felt in that moment was entirely warranted.

“Who knew,” he snickered at the boneless, blissed-out heap in front of him, reaching out to brush a drop of sweat away from Brad’s temple.

“Who the fuck knew indeed,” Brad croaked and pulled Nate down on top of himself.

It was too hot and their chests stuck together uncomfortably, but Nate just dropped a final kiss onto Brad’s sternum and stayed put until Brad had fallen asleep.


End file.
